As a council which was shocked to find itself rated as one star, against a backdrop of improvement in 75% of its services, we are forced to reflect on the way we are viewed by external inspectors. Obviously, it is important for us to improve our rating. A clear goal is to increase the pace of our journey to excellence. This means we need to document everything we do, and present ourselves well in assessments. The Peter Rogers review of regulatory services reminds me, however, there is a danger in doing this. Our primary function is to commission services to residents, and we cannot allow national inspection regimes – however well intended – to take our focus away from citizens, or fail to innovate. It is easy to fall into a tick-box mentality, where we work our way through the list of national inspection criteria, regardless of how relevant they are to our citizens' needs, or which conflict with our better local knowledge – which the district auditor is very well placed to assess. We must have the confidence that our pace of change, led by research into what our residents need and want, will take us there. Last year, we carried out what we believe to be the largest budget consultation of its kind in the UK. This provided real insight and genuinely informed the budget-setting process. This kind of thing also rates as excellent in the CPA lines of inquiry, but that was and will remain a welcome side-benefit. Our citizens' needs and wants remain our priority – and we will focus on giving them better-quality services, and better value for money without being too sidelined or distracted by ‘one-size-fits-all' red tape. Mike Suarez is director of finance at Lambeth LBC
